Our Flag at Cedar Mountain

A letter written by my Great Great Grand Uncle who served in the Civil War and lost his leg at the Battle of Cedar Mountain:

OUR FLAG AT CEDAR MOUNTAIN

BY WILLIAM LEWIS

SERGEANT & COLOR BEARER

TWENTY-EIGHT N.Y. VOLUNTEERS

WRITTEN WHEN HE LIVED IN OKLAHOMA TERRITORY, 1880

I have thought each and every year since our discharge at Lockport, now when the next reunion time comes round I will be present; but the distance is too great for me, more than 1,000 miles separates me from my old stamping ground and the place where the reunion is held. However though great the distance you can rest assured my heart is with you. Physically, I am not the same man l was at the time when I used to step three paces in front of the line with the old flag. I am now 60 years old and broken in health, and still were l one of your number am inclined to think you might rely on me as "one of the boys” again. We, Western people, when we want to do something extraordinary, talk about "painting the town red," and if I were there you might count on, my assistance. During our campaigns in the Valley of Virginia, when we were under the command of MAJOR GENERAL JOHN POPE, headquarters in the saddle, it became my lot to be color-bearer of the regiment, a very pleasant position on-dress parade or in camp, but when on the battlefield it was a horse of another color. For instance, when those bullets began to fly past your ears, like so many lightning bugs on a summer's evening, or when those "comets" (or shells) came flying over our heads - rather lively screaming. "Whar is yeh? Whar is yeh? and one occasionally dropping among us, singing, here " I find you!" Well, I have seen things more pleasing! I could fill a volume referring to army episodes and incidents, but time and space forbid. I will refer to one very important event that occurred in the history of the Twenty-Eighth New York at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, near Culpepper Court House. We had been lying in the woods all night, and in the morning of the 9th of August, 1862, first we were covering a battery, then we were ordered out in the field to form a line of battle. Those shells were singing their same old song overhead and dropping around us, when I heard the clear, ringing voice of Col. Brown command - forward! I stepped three paces in front, to my place, standing nearly in front of Company I, when I heard a familiar voice calling my name. It was Pat Geary, addressing me (as brave a boy as every wore a soldier's uniform), saying, "Serg't, and how wud yez loike to be back to Medina, instead of out here wid those colors now?" But I had no time to reply and Medina was the last place I was thinking of at that time. Things were looking rather squally about then, rather indicating that somebody was liable to be hurt. We pushed on through the field, and piece of timber to the edge of a large wheat field, wheat having been cut and standing in shocks (where were the shocks when we got through?) The enemy were in force on the other side of the field, we were satisfied, but as we gazed over the quietude of that wheat field, not a thing could be seen stirring. What mind could think or conjecture at this time that that quiet field should be the scene of such strife and struggle as was enacted during that sultry afternoon, the mercury ranging at the time from 100 degrees to 109 degrees in the shade. After waiting a short time we were ordered to charge the enemy in the woods on the other side of the field. We hardly struck the first edge of the wheat field till we were made aware that the enemy were there in full force. Oh, how the bullets flew around and about us, but our boys pushed on at a double-quick across the field. Now, you will excuse an old soldier, who has a spark of fun in his make up, if he stops here and tells a joke. Ordinarily people would say this was no place for fun. Comrades falling all around us, both dead and wounded; but even under such circumstances funny things occur, which remain in memory, causing laughter years afterwards. We had a fellow in our company named Ziba Roberts, six feet tall, and broad according. A soldier that could stand behind him was pretty safe from rebel bullets. As we were charging across that field under an extremely heavy fire from the enemy, all standing as close to the ground as possible, I must confess, Ziba calls out, "By gorry, boys, I feel too tall to-day." But Ziba was an excellent solider, and never known to shirk his duty. We went on, drove the rebels from their hiding place and through the woods. We re-formed and went back through them again, and then our trouble began; the rebs had swung around in our rear, and it seemed next to the impossible to recross that field. At this time I had two out of the eight corporals that were detailed to guard my left; Oscar Bayne was one, the other, I can't recall his name/he was from Company H. I learned afterwards he died at the hospital from wounds received at Cedar Mountain, and I understand that Comrade Bayne has heard his last roll call and gone to a better land to Join comrades gone on before. Well, I succeeded in getting two thirds of the way back across that field when was compelled to drop from the wounds I had received some time before. I could struggle on no further. I turned the colors over to that corporal of Company H, and the last I saw of him he was within a few yards of the woods that we left when we made our first charge. But something came between myself and him, and I could not say whether he reached the woods or not. That is the last I saw of our flag. I laid there on that field two nights and one day before I could get off and was gone from my regiment three months before my leg could travel. Now, comrades, I have already made this letter too long, and I have only one parting injunction to give you, always revere the old flag. Other emblems has our nation, but none of them have waded through the seas of blood the flag has. Educate your children to love and revere it. Tell them of the dear comrades we have buried on many a battlefield, who gave their lives in defense of it. Teach them in the words of the venerable John A. Dix, who gave the order, ''If any many attempt to pull down the American Flag shoot him on the spot. Teach them to love this great country of ours that you gave the best years of your life to defend and save. "Long may it wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave".

WILLIAM LEWIS - MUSTERED OUT MAY 22, 1863 SERGEANT CO. D. DURING SUMMER CAMPAIGN OF 1862 WAS COLOR BEARER OF THE 28TH. WAS WOUNDED IN ACTION AT CEDAR MOUNTAIN, VA., AUGUST 9, 1862, AND LEFT ON THE BATTLEFIELD THREE DAYS. HE WAS TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL AT ALEXANDRIA, VA., AND RETURNED TO THE REGIMENT IN NOVEMBER, 1862 WAS CAPTURED AT THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE, VA., MAY 2, 1863. WAS EXCHANGED, AND REACHED LOCKPORT IN TIME TO BE MUSTERED OUT WITH REGIMENT.

(FROM BOOK ON THE 28TH AND RESEARCHED BY THE N.Y HISTORICAL SOCIETY IN COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.)